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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Seven is pretty young. Part of swimming is gross motor skills, a neurodevelopmental issue. At that age, it’s normal for kids to have a fairly broad range of coordination, strength, and endurance.

The other issue is the quality of instruction at camps. Counselors are usually teens and young adults. They are selected for willingness, attitude, and desire to work for below minimum wage. (Camps are exempted from wage floors.) Counselors can have great hearts and provide the younger children with a lot of fun activities. However, they tend not to be trained in coaching or pedagogy. Their instruction isn’t always effective, or sometimes it’s just not the right fit for all kids.[/quote]

I was a camp swimming instructor and actually had a ridiculous amount of training to do my job.

But teaching lessons in a lake is quite challenging- we actual did additional training courses at other camps prior to our camp to learn different instructional techniques. We used to lose so much time during each lesson just to the process of coaxing kids into the water, getting them used to how the bottom felt, getting used to being able to see differently under water, etc. Once you account for all of those factors, there's still the fact that there isn't a wall to hold onto, there's no smooth bottom to stand on, there's wind and currents, etc. A lot of swimming lessons in lakes start from standing in the shallows so that itself is tricky because kids need to learn to transition from a standing position to a prone swimming position. If they're holding on to a dock, many are shocked by the dock looming a bit over them and the lack of a wall to push off of. I had kids who were clearly strong pool swimmers but could barely grasp pushing off the lake bottom from the shallows and getting to a swimming position- they would just keep dropping their feet down and popping their head up. I had swim team kids cry about touching the bottom or touching a dock or the scary dock shadows.

Anyway, all that is to say that OP, you need to just be patient with this and be grateful your kids have an introduction to this kind of swimming. It will be a gradual process unless you're practicing in the same kind of environment at home or on other vacations.[/quote]

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